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Going with your move

Go with your move

There’s a book that I once read titled, “Reminiscences of a stock operator”.As you can pretty much get from the title of the book, it’s about stocks. But more importantly, it discusses the life of a man who benefited from following his move; Lawrence Livingston was a trader who made millions of dollars because he studied charts and placed bets on the patterns that he believed that he saw.

“You won’t know until you bet”-Lawrence Livingston

I live by this, mainly because I’ve found that I really like to see where some of my ideas take me. Also because I’ve noticed that other (inexperienced) people’s input usually has low odds of being valid. Even when there’s a possibility that they know. The few times that I have listened to other (inexperienced) individuals, I’ve always missed out on opportunities. Honestly, I’ve done more than just that, I’ve missed out on several opportunities and pushed my own ideas to the side. This and my curious nature have resulted in my going with my move.

Going with my move has both helped me and hurt me.

It’s obviously helped me because I’ve gained confidence in my decision-making abilities. I had to realize that I was capable of much more than I gave myself credit for. In other words, I had to understand that my ideas weren’t worthless. And that everyone’s opinion didn’t hold value

Going with my move has allowed me to utilize my skills as both a scientist and an explorer.

These are skills that I believe are necessary in entrepreneurship. We need to explore so that we can learn. We need to explore to add value. Think about it, innovation doesn’t come about by sticking solely to the book. It comes about by pushing, by going outside of the lines to see what’s on the other side. From what I’ve noticed it comes from testing your hypothesis and seeing what will happen.

It’s hurt me because in the past I’ve coupled “going with my move” with an utter disregard for other (experienced) people’s input.

This is what I and many other people consider foolishness. Doing what I want to do despite what (experienced) people had to say. It’s what you do when you consider yourself smarter than everyone around you. That no one else has anything to say of value. Little known fact, there’s always someone smarter than you. Not realizing this resulted in my incurring unnecessary losses.

*I’m fine with the latter because if I hadn’t been so stubborn,been so stubborn, I wouldn’t have learned as much as I have.

Push forward without fear.

Now, I used that quote at the beginning of this post to put emphasis on my belief that we sometimes don’t know what’s going to happen unless we venture out and try. Although, I do suggest listening to experienced people/mentors, because it can help. But from my experience I’ve always learned by doing. By pushing the fold and seeing what’s behind it.

If I understand the risk and I have conviction to do it, my motto is do it (if it’s within reason). With that being said, nothing comes to a person who has an idea but never uses it. Just be sure that you understand what you’re doing.